Protein separators serve to extract from the water in the aquarium protein components that adversely affect the quality of the water and damage the environmental conditions for animals and plants living in the aquarium. The removal of the protein takes place in such a way that first of all a foam is generated by mixing air and protein-laden water. The foam can then be trapped in a collection vessel, which is emptied at relatively long intervals.
The protein contamination rate in aquaria is however not always constant. When organisms die or organic materials are introduced from outside, there may be a temporary severe overloading of the aquarium water with protein, which precipitates in the water, with the result that the foam generator of the separator then temporarily produces very large amounts of foam. For reasons of cost and to some extent also for reasons of space, which plays a role in aquaria installed in dwellings, the size of the protein separator may not be sufficient for the separator still to properly process the amount of foam formed also in the conceivably most unfavorable case. This may therefore cause an overflow of the collection vessel, which either necessitates the provision of an external trap tank, or leads to undesirable discharge of liquid into the surroundings of the protein separator.
The present invention is provided to solve these and other problems.